Patek Philippe Timepiece

Am I Too Young For A Patek Philippe?

Brands That Commit Sins Against Horology

Dear Watch Snob,

I enjoy your column very much and consider it as a great expression of the essential taste for men's watches.

I personally enjoy my Omega Aqua Terra Day-Date and was thinking to acquire as a sporty piece a simple, black-bezel Planet Ocean, but occasionally I spend a lot of time in ex-USSR oil-rich republics and was really impressed by the desire of some locals to carry huge flashy things on their hands.

So I would like to ask you for an opinion on watches like Richard Mille, Franck Muller and Cvstos?

Regards, G

I would like to think that by "impressed" you actually mean "horrified," but the fact that you've asked me about the brands you're asking me about makes me fear the worst. Maybe it's constant exposure to the blandishments of the populace, but I like to think that I've become a more broad-minded, tolerant snob with age (or with increasing distance from the follies of youth.)

But nothing — nothing — could possible induce me to recommend the brands you've mentioned, each of which is guilty of different sins against horology. Richard Mille's watches aren't entirely without technical merit (it does take some doing to make an 18-gram tourbillon) but, even by the standards of luxury watchmaking, the gap between price and real value offered is absurd and a few too many of his watches are examples of materials fetishism rather than horology.

Franck Muller is perhaps the saddest story here because he is actually a very talented watchmaker but he has not, himself, done anything interesting in years (he's had some interesting things done for him, which is not the same thing) and he long ago decided that his stock in trade would be pointless hyperbole on every level — Bigger! Faster! More complicated! — and the results offer all the sick fascination of a slow-motion train wreck movie scene.

Cvstos began very badly with baldly obvious Richard Mille knockoffs — go look if you don't believe me — and their recent attempts to move away from grossly apparent plagiarism have only exposed the absolute poverty of ideas behind the brand.

They say in matters of taste there can be no argument, and if thick-necked ex-State-Security flatheads with some petro-rubles rattling in their pockets feel like blowing them on banners of conspicuous consumption, that's their business. The best thing that can be said about such men and such watches is that they deserve each other.